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If your yard has a natural hillside, this slope can direct rainfall into your home's foundation, causing severe damage over time. As a strategy to control this soil erosion, along with adding extra gardening space, you may create a terraced slope. Depending on your hillside's height, terraced gardening allows you to build multiple-level stairways into the slope using retaining walls built of basic landscape timbers. When you build a terraced slope, you need to cut and fill the soil manually until you incorporate a level surface into the hillside.

1

Confirm the location of your nearby utility wires with the local authorities. Verify that your hillside does not have buried wires before starting the project.

2

Water the base of your hillside lightly 24 hours before the beginning of your project using a garden hose. Slightly damp soil during excavation prevents excessive dust from lifting into the air.

3

Dig a trench along the horizontal base of your hillside using a shovel. The depth of the trench needs to equal the radius of your landscape timber. Place the soil into a wheelbarrow for easier removal after the project.

4

Tap the trench with your shovel to compact the soil.

5

Place a hand level into the trench. Verify that the trench is level across its entire length. Add or remove soil within the trench using a hand trowel to achieve level, if necessary.

6

Measure your trench length using a measuring tape. Cut a landscape timber with a saw to the same measured length. Measure and cut additional timbers for your trench if it is longer than one timber length.

7

Lay the landscape timber into your trench. Add timbers end to end within the trench to complete the retaining wall's base. This strong base allows you to have a final 12- to 24-inch-deep terrace for various vegetables or other plants.

8

Cut two 90-degree-angle trenches at opposite ends of the first trench into the hillside using a shovel. You should have three defined edges for your terrace at this point. Your terraces should have a 2-foot height difference to allow for proper planting space, if you continue to add additional terraces above the initial base terrace.

9

Continue to cut into the hillside with these two trenches until they are deeper than your timbers' diameter by 1 inch.

10

Verify that both trenches are level along their lengths using the hand level. Place landscape timbers into the trenches.

11

Install galvanized metal spikes into the landscape timbers using a hammer. Insert a minimum of three spikes per timber, depending on the wood's length. These spikes secure the wood to the ground.

12

Add another layer of landscape timbers to the base wood. Verify that the wood joints are staggered like bricks for added stability.

13

Insert a minimum of three spikes into the top timber layer using a hammer. Avoid placing the spikes in the same position as the spikes on the base layer. If you do, your timber wall's stability may be compromised.

14

Fill the timbered area with soil using a shovel. Shovel soil from the rear of the terrace to the front. Place the hand level on the soil periodically. Slightly slope the soil 2 percent from side to side to move water away from the timbered step ends and into side drainage areas.

15

Continue to create terraces above the first by repeating the steps.

Things You Will Need

Garden hose

Shovel

Wheelbarrow

Hand level with percentage of grade graduations

Hand trowel

Measuring tape

Saw

Pressure-treated wood landscape timbers

18-inch-long galvanized spikes

Hammer

Tip

Amend your soil to create a well-drained texture prior to filling the terrace beds. Your cut and fill process has better results with soil that is not compacted.

Warning

Do not create a retaining wall higher than two timbers without a landscape architect's evaluation. Soil is extremely heavy, especially when wet, and you may create a damaging landslide by building tall walls without a professional's opinion.

About the Author

Writing professionally since 2010, Amy Rodriguez cultivates successful cacti, succulents, bulbs, carnivorous plants and orchids at home. With an electronics degree and more than 10 years of experience, she applies her love of gadgets to the gardening world as she continues her education through college classes and gardening activities.